The Secrets of Lizzie Borden (22 page)

The funeral procession was like a parade, only without the cheers, costumes, and flag waving. People lined the streets thousands strong all the way to Oak Grove Cemetery. I think the whole population of Fall River except infants and bed-bound invalids at death's door must have turned out. People confined in wheelchairs had even had their nurses or spinster daughters wheel them out to gawk as the pair of glass-enclosed hearses bearing the coffins of Father and Abby, and our carriage, rolled past. Did I only imagine it, or did I
really
see Lulie in a royal-blue satin and black lace gown, her perfect porcelain-white complexion shaded by a big black leghorn straw hat trimmed with blue satin roses and a black lace half veil, standing on the sidewalk idly twirling a black lace parasol trimmed with royal-blue satin bows amongst the throng of fashionably dressed women who had assembled on the sidewalk to watch us pass? They weren't in mourning, so they didn't have to wear black; they could trick themselves out like tropical birds and no one would criticize them. As we rode past, my hand
ached
to reach out and rip her veil off just so I could see her face again. But there was too much distance between us. I imagined she was as beautiful as ever; everyone knew Lulie was Mother Nature and Father Time's favorite child.

At Oak Grove Cemetery, as the coffins sat beside the open graves, a hysterical old Irishwoman with rosary beads wrapped around her gnarled fingers broke from the crowd and threw herself down on top of Abby's casket. She claimed to have been the Grays' Maggie before “Miss Abby married Mr. Borden.” Maybe she was? Or she might have been exactly what she seemed—a crazy old woman avid for attention. The undertaker's men had to forcibly tear her away; she was clinging so tight to the lid I was afraid she would take it with her.

But to the crowd surrounding us, this was barely a ripple upon a pond; they could hardly bear to tear their eyes away from
me
. That poor madwoman could have torn her clothes off and danced a lascivious Can-Can right on top of Father's casket and
I
would have still been the star, center stage in their attention. They just kept
staring
at
me,
watching intently, scrutinizing my every move, my every gesture, if I blinked my eyes or twitched my nose, brushed back a stray wisp of hair, rubbed my ear, tugged at my glittering jet carbobs, or adjusted my collar or a fold of my skirt. I heard the word
fidgety
whispered several times behind my back. They were waiting for me to crack and break down. They wanted to see
me
weep, tear out my hair, and fling myself into Father's grave no doubt, throwing myself instead of a clod of earth down onto his coffin.

Outwardly, it was all very proper, of course. One could expect nothing less from Fall River. No one said a word aloud, but the whispers were
deafening
. “She didn't shed a tear!” “Not
one
tear!” “She wore
blue!
” “Unnatural!” “Unfeeling!” “Unseemly!” “Heartless!” “Cold!” “Improper!”

They were about to lower the coffins into the ground when a pair of policemen came hurrying up and spoke in hushed, hurried words to the minister. They had come for the heads. We could do what we liked with the bodies, but they
must
have the heads. To boil the flesh from the skulls, to bare the broken and naked white bones, to better see if any of the blades of the various hatchets they had found fit into the wounds.

I thought all hatchets were more or less the same size, but what would an old maid know about such matters? It made me feel as though I would vomit my heart out, right into Father's empty grave. I had no idea what had become of “the Great Emancipator.” I
didn't
want to know; now that I didn't need it anymore, I only wanted it to be gone, to forever disappear. I just wanted to forget and not think about any of it anymore!

My ignorance upon the subject of the hatchet was never feigned. I heard the police had found the head of a hatchet in a box in the cellar, the handle broken off, and the blade coated in ashes as though
someone
hoped to fool the police into believing it was dust, but the glimmer of gilt betrayed it was not as old as
someone
might like to pretend. If this was indeed Bridget's handiwork I thought it quite clever of her; it was just like something out of a detective story. I, for one, would never have thought of it. When they said they found a second hatchet, rusty and red, caked with blood and hair, it gave me such a fright, I almost died. I felt my heart jolt like Frankenstein's monster coming to life, but some clever scientific gentlemen at the college at Harvard did some tests that proved it was very old and the blood and hair belonged to a long-dead cow.

While Emma protested this desecration of the dead and wept on the Reverend Buck's shoulder, I stood a little apart from them all, lost in my own little reverie, watching dispassionately—everyone said—as the police, assisted by the undertaker's men, carried the coffins into a nearby vault and a pair of doctors, toting black leather bags, followed grimly in their wake. We didn't wait to see them come out again.

That night the mayor himself came to the house at 92 Second Street with Marshal Hilliard, the chief of police. They gathered us—Emma, Uncle John, Alice Russell, and me—in the sitting room and delicately informed us that it would be better for all concerned if we did not leave the house for the next few days.

They were worried about the crowds; the curious continued to congregate outside from dawn's first light to well after dark. Word had spread far and wide thanks to the newspapers, and enterprising cabdrivers met every incoming train, crying out, “Come and see the Borden Murder House! Only twenty-five cents a head!” They would park outside and regale their spellbound audience of out-of-towners with vivid accounts of the murders, and should they spy anyone peeping out from between the curtains or any female coming in or out of the house they would point and cry out, “
THERE SHE IS NOW, FOLKS! THE MURDERESS—LIZZIE BORDEN HERSELF!
”

Alice Russell nearly died of shame when one of the hackney cabdrivers brandished his whip at her when she was returning from an errand for us. She spent the rest of the day sitting, shaking her head, while her whole body trembled, feeling “
mortified,
simply
mortified,
to think that people would think that
I
. . .”

Doubtlessly if any of their passengers recalled from the news accounts that I was a redhead, not a blonde, the clever cabbies would retort that it was a wig on the lady's dome and the cunning killer was in disguise to avoid being lynched by the outraged populace for daring to venture out amongst decent God-fearing people.

The denizens of Fall River were angry and afraid, news was spreading across the nation, and even the ocean, and they didn't like being the center of this macabre spectacle, or worrying that if I was indeed innocent then that meant that the real killer was still at large and they might be murdered in their beds at night or some ax-wielding maniac might suddenly burst in on them in broad daylight while they were sipping their morning coffee or buttering their toast.

Someone might be hurt, the Mayor said. Someone might hurt us, the Marshal said. So it was best that we stay inside.

Emma nodded mutely, and Uncle John worriedly posed a question about how we would get our mail. But I boldly met the Marshal's and the Mayor's eyes and asked, “Why? Is someone in this house suspected?”

Of course, gallantry having been ingrained in them since birth, they were reluctant to tell me. There really weren't any suspects at all beyond our threshold. It was true Dr. Handy claimed that he had seen a person he described as a “wild-eyed young man,” dark haired and mustachioed and of approximately twenty-four years, loitering about on our street the day of the murders, but the police didn't think much of his story. Fall River was
full
of dark-haired young men and mustaches were the fashion, so the police were hardly going to go chasing every one down and asking him to account for his whereabouts the day old Mr. and Mrs. Borden died.

To my mind, Dr. Handy's description sounded suspiciously like David Anthony, and I wouldn't put it past him to be lurking about, waiting to claim me as his own, like the Devil hankering after another lost soul, but his was a name I'd rather cut my tongue out than speak aloud. The murders seemed to have also killed his “love” for me, and I was heartily glad of it and hoped it would never be resurrected and that David Anthony would stay away from me
forever
.

“I want to know the truth,” I insisted, staring the Mayor straight in the eye, then favoring the Marshal with the same unwavering gaze. I already knew, but I wanted to hear them say it. I wanted to know that it wasn't just fear and guilt or my imagination getting the better of me; I
needed
to
hear
them
say
my name and that I was suspected. Uncertainty is always worse than certainty. The unknown is a devil that gnaws and niggles at the mind and soul and only knowledge can stop him even if it also wounds.

“Very well, Miss Borden,” Mayor Coughlin said quietly, “if you
must
know, then yes,
you
are suspected.”

I nodded crisply and, calling up every drop of courage I possessed, I stood and faced them. “I am ready to go now.” I held my hands out, bracing to feel the cold steel embrace of the handcuffs closing around my wrists. But both the Mayor and the Marshal demurred; it was not necessary to subject a lady to such an indignity, they insisted, and I should just continue to bide quietly at home for the time being.

Emma wept, Uncle John shook his head and stared speechlessly at the carpet and heaved a heavy sigh, and I wondered how it would all end. Would I ever know the sweet taste of freedom again or would the last time I ever danced be the Gallows Jig when my feet kicked and dangled in the empty air to the music of my own neck snapping?

All we could do was wait, carry on this pretense of mournful seclusion, of politely acceding to an official request to remain indoors to avoid unduly exciting the populace. But we all knew it was only a matter of time before I would be taken away, to await my fate sitting in a jail cell.

We offered a reward, Emma and I, $10,000 to bring the killer to justice, but no one ever claimed it. How could they? It made my stomach ache with fear; I was afraid the lure of an easy fortune would tempt Bridget to turn on me. But Emma said we must, it would look odd if we did not, form must be seen to be observed. “It's all for the best,” she said. We would discreetly send Bridget back to Ireland in grand style, in the ruched and ruffled green gown with gaudy bows all down the bodice and on the big bouncy bustle she had always “hankered after,” and the golden slippers she was always singing about, with a jaunty red feather waving good-bye to America and us on her hat.

Emma took care of it all. She said it would be best if Bridget and I didn't see each other again apart from the imminent legalities, since there was no avoiding that of course. When I resisted, Emma said I was acting silly mooning over a servant girl, and the tone of her voice, so scornful, venomous, and biting, and the piercing dark eyes that seemed to stab right into my soul made me give in. Bridget would land on her feet, just like a cat, Emma said, and catch herself a fine husband, and I knew in my heart she was right. But the heart is not an organ of reason, nor does common sense repose between our thighs. I dreamed of Bridget every night and prayed that when it was all over and done she would, of her own free will, come back to me.

But Bridget didn't love me any more than Lulie Stillwell had. It really was all just a dream. We had no future, only a past that was best forgotten, one that owed more to my forbidden fantasies than any actual truth or tender feelings.
Romance
was just a word to describe the kind of literature that fed the flames of an old maid's dreams; it had nothing to do with real life, at least not for the likes of me. Love was a beautiful gift given only to beautiful people who deserved a gift from Cupid.

While I might, if my last rendezvous wasn't with the hangman, be a lady presiding over a grand house someday, Bridget would never come live with me and be my love. My poor Cinderella masquerading as a maidservant by day with slippers of gold, not glass or the sturdy black leather boots of a typical Irish Maggie, hiding beneath her plain hems, and lying naked in silken sheets in the golden glow of lamplight beside me every night, pampered like a princess, the queen of my heart. She would wear silks, velvets, and laces for me in private, for my eyes alone, so no one else could ever fall under the spell of her black Irish beauty and sparkling green eyes and steal her away from me. I would give her diamonds; I would give her pearls, emeralds evocative of the wistful green dream of Ireland, and rubies red as blood to show her how precious she was to me, she who always called me “
macushla,
” the Gaelic endearment braiding heart's blood with true and sacrosanct lasting love. Every time I fastened a necklace of the sparkling bloodred stones around her lily-white throat I would tell her that she was worth more than all the rubies in the world to me. I would reign, as society and appearances dictated, but she would rule my heart entirely. But it was just a dream! Our fairy-tale castle was only in the clouds; it could never exist in brick and mortar in the world we knew. Reality blew it away, scattering it like ashes upon the wind, leaving me in the end with nothing but forbidden dreams and an aching yearning, an undying thirst, and a gnawing hunger I feared could never be sated.

Then came the morning when I had walked nonchalantly into the kitchen with the soiled and dingy blue diamond housedress wadded up in my hands. Emma had been pressing me to dispose of it and now, I knew, was the time to do it.